Being Diagnosed with Autism and Psychological Comorbidities

I thought I’d focus on my being diagnosed with autism and comorbid conditions. Comorbid conditions are common with a diagnosis of autism. Comorbidities are the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient. There are many conditions that are commonly diagnosed with autism. I’ll focus on a few of my psychological comorbidities in this post.

As it got closer to my high school graduation I started to change in ways I didn’t understand. I started having trouble falling asleep at night because i was gripped by a paralyzing fear that something terrible was going to happen to my family. A break-in where the robbers were going to kill all the witnesses. My mom and my two sisters raped. My baby brothers tortured and mutilated. My brain told me that if I stayed awake this disaster scenario would be avoided. So I stayed awake. After awhile the solution to preventing my nightmare changed. If I checked all the windows during the daytime and then the doors three times at night everything would be okay. Eventually that fear changed too. The nightmare scenario no longer haunted me but leaving the house for any reason but going to school filled me with a deep dread. I stopped going over to my friend S’s house which was something I’d done nearly every day for almost two years. She would invite me but I wasn’t feeling well. Stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea (not new to me) happened with a new frequency. I couldn’t trust my body.

But that was okay. I didn’t feel like eating. All I really wanted to do was sleep. When I got up in the morning for school I would get dressed, put my hair up, and lay back down until my mom called for me to get in the car. I went to school and then back home. At home I laid down down on the closet floor in my room and just stayed there. Sometimes I slept, mostly I didn’t. I converted oxygen into carbon dioxide. My memories from that time period are very vague. I know a long time schoolmate told me that I had changed and wasn’t my usual self. I knew it to be true but didn’t really care.

Shortly before I graduated we moved from my childhood home. I began having these attacks of intense fear. I would feel overly hot, sweat, shake. My heart would race and race, hammering in my chest. I would struggle to breath, experience numbness and tingling in my extremities, and was convinced i could not survive this terror. That my hear would give out. Sometimes I would cry uncontrollably during these attacks. Sometimes I’d cry after and occasionally I wouldn’t cry at all. Usually I’d fall into a deep sleep when the storm had passed. I graduated high school but didn’t leave for college. I was too scared. Scared of new places and new people. Too scared to leave my family. I started at a local community college a year after I graduated from high school. Two years later I left for university.

I had always been an anxious kid. I “came from a family of worriers” I was often told. I was a “worry wart”. I thought too much, spent too much time inside my head. I needed to try harder to think positively.

Rubbish, bunk, and nonsense.

How were you supposed to get out of your head? How do you stop thinking? Try harder? I had to force myself to walk in a crowd, to get to a classroom. The courage it took to raise my hand to participate left me mentally and physically exhausted. How much harder could I try? I barely had anything left and still had to go to work. And while we’re at it, what did I have to be sad about? People have it much harder than me after all.

Cheer up, toughen up, think positively damn you!

I knew I had had a major depressive episode. I knew I had an anxiety disorder. But my family and my culture see mental illness in black and white. You are either crazy or you aren’t trying hard enough. You’re wallowing. You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You aren’t trying hard enough!

My depression returned my first lonely semester at university. But thing were different now. The student health center was across the street from my dorm building and the counseling center a short walk away. After several days of interviews and testing I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, panic disorder with agoraphobia, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and a math learning disorder (more on that one later).

I met the majority of diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome. I display a marked impairment in facial expressions and in maintaining proper nonverbal behaviors. I fail to develop appropriate peer relationships and lack social and emotional reciprocity. I adhere to inflexible schedules of specific, nonfunctional routines. I have an intense need for sameness and consistency. I have several repetitive mannerisms, such as rocking when seated and standing. My developmental history clearly showed restricted social and emotional abilities, inadequate communication skills, uneven cognitive abilities, and an excessive and/or abnormal on special interests. My rate and tone of speech are often flat. I avoid making eye contact. I often display a significant lack of affect.